


And When He’s Mad, He Wears Shorts

by theyre_called_my_sandals



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abused Sam Winchester, Abusive Dean Winchester, Dean Makes A Mistake, Dean hits Sam, Emotional Manipulation, Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, Emotionally Hurt Sam Winchester, Guilty Dean Winchester, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Sam Winchester, I’m sorry, Manipulative Sam Winchester, No Beta, Oblivious Sam Winchester, One Shot, PreCannon-Cannon, Sam Doesn’t Forgive Him, They both suck, They’re not Fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:36:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28805958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theyre_called_my_sandals/pseuds/theyre_called_my_sandals
Summary: Sam Winchester doesn’t scar. Except the one time he does.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	And When He’s Mad, He Wears Shorts

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys! fair warning i wrote this in one sitting at 1am and barely proofread it. i’m pretty sure i messed up what tense i’m writing in a few times. too bad.  
> anyway i hope you like it!

Sam Winchester Doesn’t Scar.

When He’s Three and he skins his knee, he doesn’t scar. When he’s seven and gets his first stitches, they don’t scar. When he’s 9 and gets stabbed badly for the first time, it doesn’t scar. When he’s 12 and gets shot for the first time, it doesn’t scar. When he’s 26 and goes to hell he comes out with no new scars, but by that time he already had his first (and only).

It happened like this:

Sam is 13. Dean is 17. John is gone on yet another hunt. He’s been gone for three weeks.

Three weeks of no calls; complete radio silence. Three weeks of two teenage boys stuck in a shitty motel room together. Three weeks of two teenage boys sick with worry, not knowing if this is the time their dad finally doesn’t come back. 

Dean is stressed, to say the least. So is Sam.

Sam dives into his schoolwork as an escape. He gets straight A’s and tries to make friends. 

Dean dives into the bottle to escape. He doesn’t try to get sober, and gets mad when you suggest he does. Sam stops suggesting.

Before anyone knows t, it’s been four weeks and John isn’t back. At least, for once, money isn’t an issue. Dean still gets drunk. 

Sam is worried. 

It’s late on a Saturday night in June, the school year almost over, and Dean has run out of alcohol and the energy to go get more. Him and Sam sit in T-shirts and shorts, overheating in their too-hot motel room. Old cartoons find themselves playing on the shitty TV. 

Dean’s finally feeling the effects of doing nothing but drinking for weeks. When people reference having the “hangover from hell,” Dean is sure this must be it. 

The lights burn his eyes, his throat feels like sandpaper, and worst of all: the sound from the tv is setting his brain on fire.

Sam doesn’t seem to care.

Dean tells him to turn it down. He doesn’t. 

Dean yells at him to turn it down. He doesn’t.

Dean stares at his younger brother. He’s tiny, but with large feet promising that someday he won’t be. He’s also a twig. Dean smirks thinking about how he beats his younger brother in every sparring match their dad forces them into. He knows that will only last a couple more years.

The TV is blaring; Dean feels his pulse in his head as the sound drowns out all his thoughts. 

Dean wonders why Sam won’t just _listen_ to him. 

Sam doesn’t have to wonder why Volume 1 is too loud for Dean. 

Dean decided to teach the kid a lesson. Well, “decides” is a strong term. He’s not nearly sober enough to know what he’s doing.

Still, he stands up, not-quite-empty bottle in hand. Sam stands too, a clear act of defiance, which causes the rage burning a hole in the older man’s stomach to flare up even more. 

Except it isn’t an act of defiance, it’s an act of fear. And if Dean was in his right mind then he would know it too. But he isn’t. And he doesn’t. 

Dean slowly stumbles towards Sam, who backs up just as slowly.

Sam has wide eyes and hand up in the universal signal for surrender. Dean either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

“Dean-“ Sam says low and quiet, a failed attempt at calming his brother. 

“Shut up.”

He should’ve shut up.

Instead he tries again; “Dean-“

“I told you to shut up!” Dean roars turning and punching a wall.

Sam is sure he heard a finger break. Dean doesn’t notice.

“Im sorr-“

The sound is enough to set Dean off. He approached Sam at impossible speeds for someone so far from sober. Sam was now completely backed into the dusty corner of the room.

With a incoherent yell, Dean lands a punch on Sam’s bony shoulder. The smaller boy only makes a soft grunt, despite the immense pain. 

“Oh, what?!? _now_ you’re gonna be quiet?! NOW you’re gonna listen?!”

“Dean I’m sorr-“

With another enraged scream Dean takes his mostly empty beer bottle, draws it back, and puts all of his strength into slamming it against Sam’s left leg, right above his knee. 

The resulting cry of pain is enough to knock Dean back to reality. 

Sam was picking himself up off the floor and running (as much as he could run) to the bathroom. Dean was holding the thin-part of a shattered beer bottle in his hand, his other hand was bloody and bruised, and glass covered the floor.

Well, that is, if you could call the layer of empty bottles a “floor”

Shit. Dean was instantly sobered as he realized what he had done. 

_Shit._

“Sammy, wait, pleas-“ Sam slammed the bathroom door and Dean heard the lock click. 

“I’m sorry.” He said. There was no reply.

Silence reigned for 5 minutes. Then 10. Then 20. Then Dean hear shuffling.

On the other side of the door, Sam was picked the glass shards out of his leg. It was worst at the point of impact, but shattered glass had landed itself all up and down his leg. 

One by one, choking down his cries, he picked them all out. He needed some stitches but it was nothing he hadn’t done before. He pulled the first-aid kit out from under the sink. He cleaned and bandaged everything and then sat back down, for once thankful for his insane father’s training. 

God, he didn’t want to go out there and face Dean. 

He thought about how much worse the sting of alcohol had made the cuts. He wished Dean had used an empty bottle. Or maybe that he hadn’t done it at all.

Sam decided to shower. Not the best idea with fresh stitches, but he didn’t care. He happened to have clean clothes in the bathroom, and he dressed quickly. 

The bottoms he had with him were shorts. 

Good. Let Dean see what he had done. Let him feel guilty. 

Sam walked out of the bathroom to a clean floor, all the abandoned bottles gone, along with Dean. 

Sam used the opportunity to crawl into bed. And when Dean came back 5 minutes later, he didn’t acknowledge him, pretending to be asleep. 

Dean, just back from dumping the (much too large) bag of empty bottles in the nearby dumpster, wasn’t fooled. He respected that Sammy didn’t want to talk to him though. That was fine.

If Sammy never wanted to talk to him again then Dean would understand. 

Dean shut off the lights and found his way into his own bed. He was asleep in seconds.

He woke up some hours later to a bright sky, water and Asprin on the table next to him. He looked to the kitchen table to see Sam pouring over some books, probably studying for his finals. Nerd.

Chugging down the water and Asprin, he manages to get out a hoarse “Thanks Sammy.”

And then he sees Sam’s leg. It’s bandaged in multiple places and he can see the red stain of his little brother’s blood in the spot where he was hit.

In the spot where Dean hit him.

“Sammy, I-I’m so sorry. I didn’t- I didn’t mean to- to- I-“

Sam, thankfully took pity on him. With a more-grimace-than-smile, he manages to say “It’s fine Dean. Don’t worry about it.”

“No-no Sammy it’s not! It’s not fine I- I shouldn’t’ve- That never should’ve happened, I-“

“Dean. I’m fine. I forgive you. It’s all good.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

John came back later that day. He had called them in advance, so they could be packed up and ready to leave, onto the next town. Sam didn’t even complain about missing the end of the school year. 

Sam changed into jeans before John came. Dean silently thanked God. He couldn’t imagine what John would do to him to if he found out he had hurt Sammy, but asking Sam to cover for him felt wrong on so many levels. Luckily he didn’t have to ask.

Life went on. They hunted. They fought. They laughed. But they never forgot.

Sam Winchester doesn’t scar. But somehow, each and every scrape he got that night scarred. He had permanent markings all down his leg; a grand display of Dean’s greatest mistake.

Before the incident, Sam had lost every fight. He still did, but now he didn’t have to resort to silent treatment as his form of revenge. 

No, the silent treatment was a thing of the past.

When Sam was mad, he wore shorts. He put the scars, some of which were quite nasty, on full display. Sometimes, when he was really mad, he’d act sickeningly sweet towards his eternally guilty brother, just to make it worse.

Dean did a bad job pretending not to be phased. 

But, as always, life went on. 

Sam knew he was hurting his brother, that was the goal. After every fight, Sam wanted Dean to know he was mad. 

Sam was never good with words. Dean could scream at him for hours and never miss a beat. He always knew what to say to tear Sam down during a fight.

Sam could never get the words out, so he stopped trying. 

Instead, when he was mad, he wore shorts.

It was supposed to hurt Dean. If only Sam knew what a good job he was doing. If only he knew the dark look on Dean’s face when he saw the damage done to Sam’s leg was guilt, rather than anger.

When Sam came back from Stanford, Dean had all but forgotten about his brother’s habit. The four years he went without it had almost purged his mind of the crushing guilt.

Then they had their first fight.

And Sam broke out the shorts, showing the numerous and nasty scars that hadn’t faded even a little.

Dean’s stomach dropped. He wasn’t forgiven. He had thought that maybe after all this time- but no. He didn’t deserve that. He had hurt Sam and he had no right to be upset now. This was his fault.

Sometimes he wonders if he should’ve given Sam a more formal apology. 

Winchester men don’t talk through their feelings though. They fight monsters and push everything else down.

So Dean shoves down his guilt and sadness and works more cases. He does better, he drinks less. He tries to show Sam that he’s sorry.

Maybe if he dared breach the subject he’d have learned that that wasn’t what Sam was doing. Sam wanted to make him mad, not guilty. Sam thought he was continuing their fights the only way he knew how. He had no idea he was breaking his brother in half every time he exposed his leg.

Sam carries on with his life as normal. He knows he’s hurting Dean, he just has no idea how badly. 

Sam works cases and gets injuries he knows won’t scar (they never do). He fights with and jokes with and laughs with and protects and trusts his brother.

And when he’s mad, he wears shorts.

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhhh thanks for reading! sorry if it sucked, i hope it was least entertaining to read! love you guys!


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